


claws

by civilcarter



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Angst, Cat/Human Hybrids, Fluff, Hybrid AU, M/M, Police AU, chief!jaebum, crack in some parts, hybrid!jaebum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2018-10-10 08:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10433904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilcarter/pseuds/civilcarter
Summary: his life’s not easy. never has been and, deep inside, even if he wished with every single breath for it to be easier, he knows it won’t be.





	1. welcome back, chief im

his life’s not easy. never has been and, deep inside, even if he wished with every single breath for it to be easier, he knows it won’t be.

he wakes up earlier than the city, during most of the days. five in the morning and he’s already up, drinking a strong but not lethal dose of coffee to get his brain working again. he leaves his place usually at 5h30 and, after the half-hour drive to the station, his work starts precisely at 6. sometimes, he’s the one opening the place. but sometimes, when jackson gets too excited with some case or when something happens at night and he isn’t called (which is a pretty rare situation, he’s the police officer in charge of the whole station and therefore the one being called when things happen at nighttime), he just goes in through the door and everything looks like it has been functional ever since he left. and that usually feels weird.

today was one of those days. he coughs a little harder when he enters the station and all the lights are on, along with the unusual excess of working people at 6 in the morning. his coughing fits have become smaller and less frequent ever since he finished his medication and due to his resting period, but there’s still something bothering his lungs and he can’t tell what. his ears, hidden in the middle of his poorly brushed hair, turn down when he coughs.

everything looks oddly familiar, from the people at the front desks to the smell of coffee coming from the machine near his office. it’s weird, the sun isn’t actually up and most of the officers that work the afternoon and night shifts are there. he can’t tell if it’s because he’s been out for two weeks or it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, but even the air smells different. looks like it’s already time to go back home, and there’s an unsettling and also really plausible feeling in the pit of his stomach.

_shit has happened. and it’s not gonna be pretty._

“welcome back, chief im!” he hears from the secretary at the front desk, while she smiles at him. “are you feeling better?”

“yeah, you can say that. did something happen? i haven’t seen so many people here ever since we had kwon on the loose”.

her expression shifts into worry. jaebum shivers – and his tail twitches in a way he knows is not good.

“well, about that...” she starts, swallowing dry before continuing. “we have another case. big thing. you’re not gonna like it”.

“were any of the other officers called?”

“both of them, sir”.

jaebum’s the one swallowing dry this time. if jackson and jinyoung were called, it’s because the scenario is definitely not good. he nods a greeting and she nods back while he walks in, through the cubicles and the people walking and typing and writing quickly. some of them wish him a good return to work. he doesn't understand them, though - coming back to an apparently difficult case was the last thing he was expecting to happen. he sees the lights on in his office and can hear two muffled voices discussing. it doesn’t take him much to find you who’s inside.

“it’s the best option we have, if it’s really him we have to get the word out, jackson!” jinyoung says, impositively. technically jackson is older than him, but that doesn’t stop him from speaking like the officer he is.

“we can’t do that! if we do that, it’ll lower our chances of actually finding him, he’ll start hiding and we’ll have to wait another ten years to find him!” jackson answers, in the same intonation and with the same expression, severe but still not threatening.

jaebum observes the discussion in silence, taking in the thick air around them and filling in his whole room until jinyoung notices the open door and gets up from the place he was siting (on top of jaebum’s desk, with his right leg near the edge). jackson notices the colleague’s change in posture and follows his stare towards his chief, turning around with a surprised expression. jaebum doesn’t know what’s happening, but his tail is twitching stronger and that is not a good sign.

“chief, i’m... i’m sorry for-“

“don’t worry jinyoung, that’s not a problem” he answers, walking in. “can i walk in?” he asks, in more of a sarcastic tone (it’s his personal office) rather than a questioning one. neither of the subalterns open their mouths while jaebum hangs his jacket and sits at his chair. they still observe him attentively, especially jackson, who has been working a lot lately because of jaebum’s absence.

jaebum takes a deep breath. “ok, start explaining”.

_it was gonna be a hell of a week._


	2. puzzle pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if he wasn’t insane already, he definitely wouldn’t be able to hide from it much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there!! i'm sorry for not posting in a while, you already know my drama of lack of time to write. i hope you enjoy this story too. this chapter has some autopsy descriptions, so please be warned.
> 
> thank you for reading, and i hope you like it!

the world they live in is not a nice place.

there’s no such thing as being a good person – there are only less worse people. as despairing as it may seem, it’s reality, and it’s something jaebum has been dealing with ever since he was a child. it’s what gives him a certain sobriety regarding dealing with his personal life, and also in the way he deals with his work and the reactions it could provoke if he didn’t control his senses as much as he does.

it’s been like this ever since he could remember. at home, in the market, at school, at restaurants; the weird glances, the lack of sympathy, the prejudice. everything’s carved so deep in his bones that even if they were burned after his death, the memories would still linger a while longer in the fire before vanishing, whithering like a dead rose.

jaebum has always been a very intelligent person. not only school-wise, but in life as a whole. he’s never gotten into trouble, never done anything to deserve being treated the way he was sometimes. he actually believed there were _nice_ people out there, who wouldn’t act around him like he’s a strange presence in the room - ignoring him and everything he did just because of who he was. he was always one of the smartest kids in class, the most probable person to receive honors when he finished high-school.

that was when reality first hit him tough. people don’t really care if you’re smart or not, how you act or how many high scores you got in a test. _as far as you’re a hybrid, you’ll always be the last choice._

it was like a punch to his stomach, and it made him realize that if he really wanted to be someone in this world, he would have to be the absolute best; otherwise, there would always be a pure human to be chosen and to erase his presence from the competition. there was no such absurd concept as _equality_ – that’s a myth. after that, his whole life has been a constant strive for the best, a never-ending fight to be treated equally. sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. he lost one of his jobs because of it once; but it’s also why he’s now the head of this station.

however, the veiled prejudice against his equals still spreads. jaebum is what they’d call an _exception_ – something out of the normal curve of expectance, reaching higher than most hybrids have the right, the chance and dream to, most of the time. only a small portion of the total hybrid population actually finishes college; some of them don’t even get to finish high school. the disparity of salary, rights and opportunities given to pure humans and hybrids is not only monstrously uneven but visible and sometimes even tangible. and still, only a few seem to acknowledge and care about it.

they live in invisibly segregated spaces, their voice has been forgotten and neglected, and  are often stereotyped as lazy asses or dangerous threats to the human society. _that’s the world he lives in._

when he saw the photos from the crime scene, whatever he has eaten the past day came back in a matter of seconds. he’s a hybrid, technically his stomach is stronger than a human’s – but it didn’t stop neither diminish his nausea. the scars, the cuts, everything looked so scarily familiar and so shocking, imprinting the scene inside his brain and making him shiver not in affright, but in worry.

in six years of work, he has never seen a murderer as ferocious as this.

jinyoung’s looking down at him, his eyes parting from the photos to jaebum’s visible frown and back to the pictures. jackson’s doing the same, but from the other side of the table, while leaning and placing both his hands over the edges. the dense silence filling the room makes the air thicker and heavier with the unspoken and inevitable conclusion, and breathing becomes an uncommonly difficult task. even if it’s not clear or neither of them have spoken it properly, all three men know the reason why this murder is different, and why the whole situation looks way worse than it should actually be.

jaebum’s deep down in his thoughts when he first opens his mouth to speak. he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, the pictures are so grotesque he can’t take his eyes off of it, like he’s calculating the size of the shithole they just got in.

“do we have a name?”

jinyoung looks at him. “what?”

“a name for the victim” jaebum places the images over his desk and leans down to rest his back at the chair, massaging his temples with his fingers.

“yugyeom and youngjae are working on it” jackson answers straight away. there’s a rare discomfort in his voice, something jaebum had heard only once or twice during the five years they have been working together. “the field agents have found nothing unusual at the alley, besides the body. no gun, no knife, nothing”

“well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what the murder weapon was” jaebum says in a low-tone, disgust and worry mixed with the spit of words. the sarcasm was more to him than to the others. it’s not like jackson and jinyoung don’t already know about his peculiar sense of humor.

“mark’s waiting for you at the necropsy room. he needs your signature at the death certificate” jackson answers. his hands leave the edges of the table and one of them go under his shoulder’s holster, scratching the skin beneath the social white shirt he’s wearing.

“do we have any witnesses?” he asks again.

“not yet, chief” jinyoung answers.

“i’ll be down at the necropsy room with mark. if something comes up, let me know this time” he answers bitterly.

✪

he’s walking quickly down the stairs, trying to keep up with yugyeom’s long and fast legs, that walk two steps where jaebum would needs four of five to reach the same distance. the youngest has the usual white coat over his shoulder and down to his body and arms, the badge hanging from it loosely. they met at the archives’ floor, while the youngest was searching for information about the victim. jaebum follows him down to the laboratories at the lowest level.

when they reach the floor’s level, yugyeom slows down a bit to start talking.

“mark-hyung has already sent us the samples, they might be done any minute now” he says, looking a little bit down.

“yeah, yeah, i’m on my way to the autopsy room. do you already have the name of the victim?”

“kind of” he looks down at the file in his hands, opening it. jaebum stretches his neck to eye the papers with him, frowning at the strange answer. “his name’s kim yoongi, 25 years old. no brothers or sisters, both parents deceased. this guy looks like a ghost, he has an absolutely clean file. not even a traffic ticket. does it smell odd to you too?” he asks, under jaebum’s thoughtful stare.

“maybe. try matching his id with something at the older files, search for distant relatives or anything at the missing person’s system, please” jaebum orders, and in no more than a minute, yugyeom is already walking back to his laboratory, but not after a ‘yes, boss’. however, before turning the corner, he looks to his chief again, this time happily.

“welcome back, hyung chief!”

jaebum smiles at the nickname.

✪

his smile fades when he walks into the room and it’s uncommonly freezing and empty. working between dead bodies can be really cold and lonely, but he’s starting to think that maybe there’s something wrong with the air conditioning system of the room. the white lights don’t do much helping in lightening the mood inside the place, only reflecting the lack of humanity between those walls. to his front, there’s another door. jaebum looks to his right, observing the closed shiny drawers adorning the whole extension of the wall. to his left, there’s the iron gurney and some tools and, at the far right wall, two huge sinks.

he’s immersed in the feeling the room gives him when mark’s voice comes in through the door to his front. he tenses for a small second, but the vision of his colleague eases his muscles – that continue a little naturally stiff because of the low temperature. mark’s looking down at a file that looks a lot like the one yugyeom had with him, but the papers inside probably have the autopsy mark has already performed and jaebum needs to sign.

“hiya, chief. you look great, how was your resting period?” the man walks towards the gurney, so used to the whole place he can fix his eyes and attention into the paper in his hands and still not stumble upon anything in his path.

“oh, i’m fine, thank you for asking” jaebum answers, coughing a little at the end. “by the way, is there something wrong with the refrigeration in this room? is it really supposed to be this cold?”

mark suddenly looks up. the file in his hands is placed on top of the iron bed. “about this... you might wanna take a look at the body”.

“why?”

“because the necropsy has been a little, how can i put this...” he walks towards one of the lower drawers at the wall. “there are peculiarities”.

“peculiarities?”

“yes. excuse me, please” he motions for the chief to move backwards. jaebum complies, leaving a space between them. mark reaches for the handle of the drawer and pushes it, revealing an already white and completely lifeless body laying on top of it. in six years of work and three of training, the sight of dead people is something that will never stop haunting him.

the man at the gurney looks exactly like the one in yugyeom’s files, the _kim yoongi_ guy. he looks cleaner, just like the enormous cut at his throat and the multiple claw-shaped excoriations over his body. jaebum can now see how deep they were, and that explains the huge size of the crimson pools around him at the crime scene. he looks recognizable now. at the photos, you could barely understand what was that – he looked like a shapeless pile of meat, bones and nerves laying at a lake of blood in the cement. now, jaebum can see his face, the bruises in his legs, the cuts the bones made when they were broken and carved their way out of his skin. it’s still horrific, but now in a human-shape.

there’s also a weird smell coming from him that, unfortunately to jaebum’s enhanced senses, comes in through his nostrils and makes his ears lower and his tail curves down, giving him a small stomachache. it’s a weird smell, like a mix of dead meat and chloroform – and he’s sure it’s not from the autopsy room, because he has never smelled that before while in there.

“where do i start? have you seen the photos of the scene?”

“yes, jinyoung showed me them”.

“so you’ve seen that grotesque thing. our usual working pattern is going first for the external autopsy and, after that, the internal one” mark explains. “well, while i was putting his limbs back in place and starting to clean up the cuts, i found some things. the cuts were deeper than anything i have ever seen, like the murderer’s claws were bigger than the standard for a normal hybrid. he managed to get to the bones in his arms with some of the lacerations”.

jaebum has his left arm crossed in front of his stomach, the right arm’s elbow resting over it. his right hand’s over his chin, and he sometimes rubs it (more as a nervous tic than an actual itchiness). his frown is big. he’s looking down at the cuts he can see – some are hidden under the sheet used to cover the body’s lower half. there are some in his arms, at his chest and legs. their extension is big and, as mark said, they really look deeper. there are some bruises in his knees and thighs.

“i hoped i could find some sample of the attackers claws inside the wounds – they sometimes break because of the stress put over them while cutting. there was nothing, not even a small piece. the blood behind his nails is all his, youngjae showed me the results of the samples i sent for him to analyze while you were upstairs”.

“what are these bruises in his legs? could it be something made by the killer?”

“by my estimations, they were made about seven hours before he was killed. if he was already with the murderer by then, that i can’t tell”.

“and what about his guts?”

“yugyeom brought me the results as soon as he finished them. i sent him some fluids i found in his stomach and lungs, along with blood to confirm his id and some tissues i extracted from his spinal cord. the fluid in his stomach and lungs is a type of venom that decreases blood pressure and sends the victim into shock. yugyeom found more in his veins, too. we don’t know if it’s what killed him, but it was probably what made him loose so much blood”.

“and his spinal cord?”

“he had spinal cancer”.

“what?” jaebum blinked in shock.

“that’s what you heard. i found the tumors while extracting his brain. i don’t know for how long he’s had it, but according to his age, it was fairly advanced”.

jaebum breathed deeper this time.

he left the room quietly after signing the results of the autopsy and went upstairs again, sitting in his chair and noticing the new pile of papers in front of him, over the desk. the clock in the wall ticked impatiently. meanwhile, he could hear the clicking of the keyboards outside the walls of his office, along with the not so muffled chatter.

he felt weird, a little lightheaded. looking around at the files’ cabinets and the window and the world outside, everything seemed like a giant unrecognizable puzzle, that suddenly didn’t fit together - like the pieces got crooked and could no longer form the picture he was used to see. that wasn't his world, not the one he was used to. this was different, somehow.

if he wasn’t insane already, he definitely wouldn’t be able to hide from it much longer.


	3. the lonely lotus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jackson doesn’t answer for a second. going out might actually be a good idea. the walls were starting to close again, anyway - maybe leaving the place and breathing the morning air might be a better thing to do than staying inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um hi there! here it is, another chapter. i hope you enjoy this, and sorry again for taking so long to update it. thank you for reading, i love you! <3

it’s gonna be a nice day, according with what he sees outside. from the window in his small office, located at the extreme left corner on the first floor of the big station complex, he can see the sunlight starting to collide against the pavement lazily, while the world outside is starting another day. the store on the other side of the street is opening its doors and there are some children walking towards lisbon high, the only high school in the neighborhood. everything seems to be functioning just like it always does – the earth still revolves around the sun, the plants remain growing at the garden on the right side of the station and he enjoys it, the normality of it. at least the world outside looks undisturbed.

his room is absurdly small, or so says his claustrophobia. he can’t really tell – he knows jaebum and jinyoung’s rooms have the exact same size of his; but still they seem bigger. maybe it’s because he spends the biggest amount of his working time inside those walls and they get smaller everytime he raises his head from observing a file. maybe it’s just the paranoia getting the best of him. _yeah, maybe that’s it._

he takes another sip of his coffee. it’s still hot and strong, just the way he likes it. he usually forgets to thank lisa for it, but when he does she just opens her brightest and sweetest smile and says “you’re my fiancé, you don’t need to thank me”. he still does it sometimes, though – it’s a matter of being polite, not being close. the sunlight shines in his engagement ring and he looks at it while his hand still holds the mug. he wanted to smile at it, but he can’t.

there are knockings at his door.

he cleans his throat before speaking up, sitting straight and trying to look like an actual officer. “come in, please”.

jinyoung’s head, neck and part of his shoulder appear from behind the now open door.

“what are you doing?”

“observing the tests on the weapon from the murder at the 5th district. why?”

“because yugyeom is a genius and found out that the name we first got at the hybrid murder is fake and now i have an empty apartment to search and a younger sister to interrogate. wanna help me?”

jackson doesn’t answer for a second. going out might actually be a good idea. the walls were starting to close again, anyway - maybe leaving the place and breathing the morning air might be a better thing to do than staying inside.

“yeah, sure”.

✪

jackson and jinyoung make a good team, even if they don’t always work together. as sub-deputies, the work is usually _divided between_ them; jackson works with cases from the east side of the city and jinyoung is responsible for the ones at the west districts, while the north and south ones usually end up with jaebum. he’s their superior, after all - he gets the biggest part of it.

that doesn’t necessarily mean jinyoung or jackson have never worked in any case regarding the south and north wings, though. in fact, sometimes jaebum has so much to work, the “lower crimes” end up on their desks. jaebum hates it when this happens (he hates giving up on work he was supposed to do because he doesn’t have the time to, it makes him feel useless), but ever since he almost died due to his poor health five weeks before this whole situation ended up in their hands, he stopped complaining about it.

they’re sitting side by side at the car. jinyoung’s the one driving, while jackson quietly observes the world outside during their route. the radio’s on, and a soft old tune plays in the background, something jackson has already heard before but doesn’t remember the name neither the singer. jackson has always been a happy and talkative person, ever since he first stepped at the complex; therefore, jinyoung knows his unusual quietness indicates either something is wrong or he’s not feeling well.

“are you ok?” jinyoung suddenly asks. jackson, too absorbed in his thoughts to answer right away, takes a second or two to take his eyes off of the view and point them to his partner.

“what?”

“is everything ok with you? you look... i don’t know, terrible”

jackson is, indeed, feeling sad. but that’s not something jinyoung’s supposed to know, so he nods a ‘no’.

“i’m fine. i had a horrible night, i guess i’m a little lethargic still”.

jinyoung knows it’s a lie. but if jackson doesn’t wanna tell him what’s wrong, he’s not going to force him.

“what’s our victim’s new name?” he asks.

“park hansoo. 26 years old. he has a younger sister that lives in the east wing. park yongsun. she works at a café near bogum college” jinyoung explains. “we’re heading there first to see what we can get from her, and then we’re going back to the west wing-“

“where hansoo’s apartment is” jackson completes it. “does he have any other relatives besides his sister?”

“no, not according to the files. his parents died a couple of years ago, his eomma from a heart attack and his appa while on a kidney surgery. apparently, all the money they had is still frozen in the bank, because their testament gives all of it to the girl”.

jackson looks seriously at his partner. jinyoung, by his look, can tell what he’s thinking. “well, it can be a good reason to try to kill your sister, can’t it?”

“and she defends herself and kills him instead” he suggests. “she’s a hybrid, the wounds match”.

“but she’d have to be the strongest woman on earth to cut him like that” jackson arguments. “are you sure she’s working today?”

“i called her boss, he said her shift starts at 7” jinyoung closes his mouth for a second to park in front of the cafe.

jackson is still conjecturing about the girl when he opens the door. the sun caresses his face for a second, but so does the cold air, that scratches his lungs a little when he breathes in the first time. his long coat hugs him and gives him some warmth, along with his long-sleeved social shirt and his pants. the gun hanging at the holster feels commonly heavy at his right side. _he’s fine, he swears he is._

they walk in silence towards the entry door. jinyoung goes in first, and the head of the girl at the register turns towards the sound. she looked like a doll, as far as jackson remembers; button nose and peachy, almost plastic skin. she did have a feline-like expression, that matched her black ears. her big eyes were the thing he remembers the most, the left one in a light shade of brown and the other as green as grass during summer. she stared blankly at them while they moved towards her.

“good morning, ma’am” jinyoung started. jackson knew that was his job, starting the conversation; jinyoung was never the sociable one. but he’s trying to change it, so jackson lets him be, just this once. “i’m sorry to be a bother, but are you park yongsun?”

“yes, that’s me. is there something wrong?” she asks. her voice’s kind, but doesn’t sound like a cat, like jackson thought it would. she sounds, and he can’t tell if he’s sad or just bothered by it, like _lisa_.

“i’m officer park, this is my friend, officer wang. we’d like to ask you a few questions about your brother, hansoo”.

“oh, _him_ ” her tone has a little of disgust, but a great majority of indifference. “what did he do this time?”

“when was the last time you saw him?” jackson steps in, asking this time.

“i don’t know. last week, maybe? he rarely remembers i exist – that is, until he runs out of money and comes at me begging for some” she says.

“do you remember something odd in him that day? maybe afraid of someone, or worried?” jinyoung is the one asking now.

“he always looked like that. he owns money to at least 3 loan sharks, and some gangs too. he always had reasons to be afraid of people” yongsun explained, her tone not changing. “is he in trouble?”

“i’m afraid not anymore, miss. your brother was found dead yesterday at an alley on the third district”.

something broke inside her eyes as soon as the words got to her ears, jackson noticed. so far, she just looked like a neglected sister – and he had already seen plenty of those in his years as a cop. but this time, her reaction was different. as far as he knows, the ears and tail from a hybrid are the only things they don’t have full control of, they work according with their senses, not with the conscious side of their brain. her ears pointed down and hid in the middle of her hair, and her tail moved in an unconsciously uncomfortable manner. her expression, otherwise, kept calm and sober, despite the almost undetectable pools of tears and her glassy heterochromatic eyes.

“i’m very sorry for your loss” jackson says, in an apologetic manner.

“don’t be” her voice sounded a little broken. her composure, however, remained the same from before. “i don’t even know why i’m so surprised. it would happen, eventually”.

jinyoung frowned. “i am sorry, but we have to make another one or two questions. just the usual procedure”.

“oh, it’s ok” she cleaned a small tear with the side of her finger. “what else do you need to know?”

“has he ever told you the name of one of the loan sharks he owned money to? or the gangs? anything can be useful, as unimportant as it may seem” jinyoung asks. his voice now sounds a little softer.

“boo hangsa, i guess. he’s one of the loan sharks” jinyoung noted the name in a small paper as she spoke. “he never mentioned them, he said it was better if i knew nothing about what he was in to”.

“anything else you think that could help us?”

she thought for a second or two. then, got up from her stool.

“one second, please”.

she walked towards the back door. after two or three minutes, she returned with a small piece of paper. there was a small lotus flower painted on top of it.

“there’s a bar on elm street called ‘the lonely lotus’. the owner of the bar was friends with eomma, and soo used to hide there when people came after him” she said, straightening her arm and giving the small paper to jackson. “he gave me this and said if i needed anything, i could go there and they’d help me – whatever that meant. i never used it. maybe it can help you”.

“it certainly will. we’ll find out whoever did this to him. it’s a promise”.


	4. something we're missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “if it is a bar, it won’t be open until nighttime” jackson reasons, more to himself than to jinyoung. the other just nods, agreeing wordlessly. “which means we go first to hansoo’s apartment”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! it's been AGES since i last updated this, i swear i haven't forgotten about it!!!! i'm just really offline most of the time, but i'll try updating it more often. i hope you enjoy this.  
> oh, and the things marked with italics are thoughts from the characters.  
> nice reading!! love ya :)

the police is supposed to be efficient, intelligent and relentless. there is no such thing as resting when one’s a cop. the world doesn’t stop – therefore, neither should justice.

the justice department is an entity that, at first, was supposed to be not only utopic but also devoid of personal judgement. the whole corporation has to work as one, following organically the rules we call law and providing and promoting the principles the population should follow and take as truth. it’s what it was built for and how it should work, despite what people think.

but even organic specimens have flaws. just like that, the south korean department of justice was idealized as the perfect specimen – but what emerged after a few years was a creature filled with enormous tumors, still trying to function but still waiting endlessly for it’s euthanasia. the few unaffected and fully operational cells, such as some employees of the seoul police department and its three deputies, still try to work as if the whole body was still completely unharmed, like the whole division they worked in wasn’t filled with verminous crimes and putrid ethics. in the end of the day, the crime the department fights comes from inside the police itself.

“if it is a bar, it won’t be open until nighttime” jackson reasons, more to himself than to jinyoung. the other just nods, agreeing wordlessly. “which means we go first to hansoo’s apartment”.

jinyoung nodded again.

the ride towards the west wing was quiet and took no more than 30 minutes. the apartment marked in hansoo’s files was located in a building in the heart of the west wing, an area known for its high rates of homicide, robbery and lower crimes, along with prostitution and drug smuggling - so it’s no surprise that both jackson and jinyoung knew the wing like the palm of their hands. there is always an emergency in the west wing, either a crime of passion, personal _vendettas_ , overdose, prostitution houses being closed or improper use of fire weapons (which means firing guns, no matter the context).

the car was parked one block away from the address. being in the west wing meant being in danger, especially if one’s a cop - almost as threatening as being a sheep in the middle of a pack of wolves. that being known, hiding the guns, the badges and the car would be the smartest and safest decision. jackson got out first because jinyoung was the one driving again. it seems like a quiet neighborhood - there are a couple of kids playing in a small park in the front of the building they’re supposed to go, and there’s an old hybrid lady in her porch, watering plants and talking to herself while her _grisaille_ tail wiggles from one side to another.

“do you think we’ll find anything here?” jackson asks jinyoung. he tears his attention from the park.

“if he was killed because of his loaning, maybe. but if he knew he was being chased, probably not. i feel like we’ll find more once we meet the bar’s owners” jinyoung says, a little too coldly. jinyoung thinks analytically – something jackson is already used to. “the girl said they’re friends of the family, probably could tell us more about hansoo than she did”.

“or maybe not, if they’re also involved”.

“yeah, maybe” the eldest answers. both men stop in front of the building’s entrance. “we’ll only know if we search for it”.

✪

it wasn’t hard to get inside once the whole situation had been explained to the guard at the main entrance of the building. the apartment, at first, seemed nothing much. it was locked with keys, and not a punch-in code (something usual at the richer wings, but not so much at west, where the biggest part of the population doesn’t have enough money for such security measures). jinyoung doesn’t really like doing this type of thing, so it’s normally jackson’s duty to break the lock when the situation demands so.

the inside of the apartment smelled like decomposing food, beer and mold. all the windows were closed and their glasses were painted black – not to mention the nails nailed near the locks, to prevent it from opening from the outside. the furniture consisted of an old, dirty couch at the living room, a fridge, a table with 2 chairs and a trash can at the kitchen, a bed and a wardrobe at the bedroom and the usual for a bathroom. there was no food at the fridge; no clothes at the wardrobe. lots of beer bottles scattered all over the living room and kitchen. at the trash can, take in food boxes. no documents, no phone to search for suspicious calls, not one single thing that could be helpful.

“this guy was really good at covering his tracks” jinyoung half-whispers it. jackson understands enough. “he left nothing back – probably knowing this was the first place people would come looking after him once something happened”.

jackson comes back from the bedroom. “we’ll probably find more once we’re able to talk to the people at the _lonely lotus_. predictable, knowing the kind of people he owed money to”.

“but still weird,  isn’t it? we’ve worked on similar cases before, but this is different somehow” jinyoung frowns, looking at his partner. “there’s something wrong in this, something we’re missing; there has to. something we don’t know yet”.

jackson stares at his friend with a blank stare for some seconds, observing the way jinyoung looks at the apartment. there’s a glint of something – part curiosity, part will to discover and figure things out. jinyoung’s one of the smartest people jackson has ever seen and worked with – which means that if he really meant what he said, something was really out of place.

 _they’re not usually this careful,_ jinyoung thinks, walking around the apartment once more. _this guy knew exactly the type of people who were coming after him.  which means that if he did all this and went to the trouble of moving all his belongings to a safer place, we’re dealing with something way bigger than just loan sharks and small gangs_.

✪

he walks the last flight of stairs as calmly and quietly as possible. hidden in his clothes is a small gun and in his pocket, a knife. with his skills, he could take both of them down if they were unarmed – which was not the case, dealing with the fact both men inside the apartment right now are cops and would never come to a wing like the west one unarmed. he can hear them walking inside. he keeps his back to the wall, listening closefully while the two men speak.

 “he left nothing back – probably knowing this was the first place people would come looking after him once something happened” one of them says it. the other one seems to walk back before speaking.

“we’ll probably find more once we’re able to talk to the people at the _lonely lotus_. predictable, knowing the kind of people he owed money to”.

 _they’re planning to go to the bar._ _if the cops think there’s something there, it shouldn’t hurt to pay them a visit before they do, right?_


End file.
